AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He's not the type to put up with this shit. Top-tier athletes don't deal well with being brushed off. I'll just have to find a new way to make money. Maybe ask Greg if I can host a Pampered Chef party? I don't know. Fuck it. I'll figure out the specifics later.
I turn to leave, pushing through the glass door of the building, when I hear him call out my name behind me.
I don't have time for explanations.
I don't have answers I can give him.
I just need to get to Colin.
It'sworsethanIimagined.
Racing towards the back of the supermarket, I can already hear Colin's humming cry.
Customers are shopping, eyes wandering, and every brief look of disapproval I see emanating from each one of these shoppers is cutting me deeper and deeper. They don't understand. They never would. They judge and assume. The words retard, crazy, psycho, run through their heads as they look on condescendingly.
My brother is none of those things. He's exceptional. Loving. Hopeful. Inspirational. Full of heart and an overabundance of NASCAR facts. He could recite the make and model of the car you drive after meeting you once. But handling changes or social settings? Well, that's difficult for him.
I race around towards the entrance to the staff room, bumping into Maureen at the door.
“He was playing with his hands again, not bagging for me while the customer was waiting, then he just took off running. He won't be quiet, broke some things, and now he's hitting his head on the wall.” She places her hands on her flared hips and continues flapping her thin lips at me as I push to get around her. “Stacy's mad. Her purse fell over and all of her medication dumped all over this nasty-ass carpet. She wants it replaced—”
“Fine, just…” I lift my hands, trying to process everything she just spit out at me without decking her. “Just give me a minute alone with him, please!”
She shakes her head, scratching her short, thinning grey hair as she finally wobbles her arthritis-ridden body around me. With her finally out of the way, I shut the door, turning on a light in the small coat closet nearby before turning off the bright fluorescents above.
“Col, it's Pickle,” I say calmly, approaching where he’s crouched in the corner beneath the desk.
He's doing the thing where he cries by humming as he hits himself on the top of the head. I quickly scan the room. He tossed the purse, the contents indeed splayed along the floor. I see his bag hanging up on the hangers nearby, the zipper pulled down as if he had been trying to get his fidget toy to calm himself.
The sight breaks me.
Something triggered him, and he began stimming, or fidgeting with his hands as Maureen said. When it became too much and crossing his fingers didn't help to ease his discomfort, he made his way to his backpack to find his fidget, another source of self-regulation. He knew he was on the verge of a meltdown and went through the process his advisor recommended, but it wasn't enough.
“M-my...make it stop. T-take off!”
He screams loudly, hitting his head against the wall and holding his hands over his ears. For some strange reason, I notice they have him wearing a new oversized Piggly Wiggly t-shirt that I've never seen before. The shirt I put him in this morning is lying wrinkled up on the floor under his jacket.
“Colin! Col! It's okay,” I say, crawling under the desk, grabbing his arm and pulling him away from the wall.
He begins aggressively hitting himself in the head before reaching back and hitting himself behind the neck.
I immediately move to remove his shirt. One thing this stupid staff doesn't know is that my brother has an extreme sensitivity to t-shirt tags, which is why every tag on all of his shirts back home have to be removed. To him, I can only imagine it feels like he's being stabbed in the back as his senses go into overdrive.
This used to be horrifying. His meltdowns used to scare me when I was a child. I watched on so many occasions as my mother and father locked him in his room alone until he “calmed down.” But only after sneaking into his room when my parents weren't looking, worried that my big brother would hurt himself, did I discover my own way of getting him out of his own head faster.Kanye.
I pull his shirt over his head, sending his overgrown hair falling onto his forehead, obstructing his vision. The skin on his back is blotchy and red.
I quickly pull him back into my chest, wrapping my arms around him in a tight embrace as he heaves. Holding his arms down to the best of my ability, I wrap my legs around his hips, giving him a bear hug from behind.
This is why I workout. He fights it, my embrace, but I flex down on him, tightening my grip as I plant my chin on his shoulder.
With my face in the crook of his neck, I begin calmly singing, “Work it, make it, do it, makes us harder, better, faster, stronger—”
He wiggles an arm free, swinging to hit his head, but hits mine instead. I flinch as the area below my eye burns, but I continue to hold him because I know how he operates, and I know the fastest way to calm him down.
Is this the correct way? Who knows? Lots of autistic people don’t want to be touched, but when Colin loses all sense of security, this just works for him. I’m his own personal weighted blanket.
He keeps struggling until he's panting so hard against my hold he has to stall his movements to breathe. I squeeze tighter, giving him a hard hug.
